Yong Kim/MCTFlyers Darroll Powe (left) and Blair Betts (right) check Ilya Kovalchuk into the boards during the third period Sunday night.Flyers left winger Dan Carcillo will be facing a suspension after he cut David Clarkson just outside the Devils winger’s right eye with a high stick during Sunday night's game in Philadelphia.

Clarkson needed three stitches to close the gash.

“I think he went to punch me and he hit me with his stick,” Clarkson said. “He came in and wanted to fight and I think he got his stick up. I think it was pretty dirty.”

Carcillo received a match penalty for the incident.

“They don’t really hand out match penalties (for no reason),” Clarkson said. “I didn’t see it coming and I had my hands down.”

Later, with 2:45 remaining in the game, Darroll Powe hit Ilya Kovalchuk. Powe got a roughing minor while Bryce Salvador stepped in and was issued a double minor for roughing.

“It’s 5-1 at that time,” Salvador said. “They got running around a bit there. We can’t have guys finishing checks on our star players. We can’t allow that to happen with that much time left.”

It was, in fact, a typical Devils-Flyers game.

“It always happens between the Devils and Philly," Brian Rolston suggested. "It goes without saying, that’s going to happen. I thought our guys did a great job responding.”

In the final two minutes of the first period, Carcillo knocked down defenseman Andy Greene at the blue line and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond skated in and high-sticked the Flyers winger to put the Devils a man short.

That proved costly. There were two seconds remaining on Leblond's penalty when the Flyers scored on the power play 45 seconds into the second period.

When Arron Asham and Powe both ran Colin White into the end boards at 13:09 of the third, Leblond fought Asham.

“From what I saw, it wasn’t clean,” Leblond said. “There were two guys on him.”

White said he braced himself for the double hit.

"I knew the other guy was coming," White said. "I t ried to bump the puck to myself and it wound up in my feet."

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The Devils finished 0-for-6 on the power play.

"We didn't score on our chances on the power play," Kovalchuk said. "That's how we lost the game."